22.11.10

1. Secret Cinema - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Faithful reader! I've been neglecting you! I've been ill, busy, ill again and then even more busy. It is time for a proper update. You may remember me teasing of the return of Miss Hannah Jerrom a few weeks back, well I can now tell you what all the fuss was over. We were contacted by the Secret Cinema group who were looking for recent graduates from the Performance: Design and Practise course at CSM to jump onboard their latest project, codenamed 'Louise' (LOVE THIS) to design and build a collection of quirky and conceptual installations. So off we trot to a Secret Location in West London (Ladbroke Grove) to have a recce around the most extraordinary building - a derelict hospital on the fringes of Notting Hill. This was the venue chosen to showcase the latest film to undergo the Secret Cinema treatment - Milos Forman's seminal 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' (1975) starring Jack Nicholson as McMurphy and Will Sampson as Chief Bromden: The Oscar winning Louise Fletcher plays the terrifying Nurse Ratched, and it was her character that we wanted to focus our installation piece on. The West London location was to be transformed into the 'Oregon State Mental Hospital' of the film and novel. We were to be in charge of individual rooms (for the space was so massive). Luckily, this project coincided with my half-term break at school, so this one week window was to be spent realising our one room installation dedicated to the themes of the film. One of our timetables, budgets and equipment lists: This project needed to be cheap, easy to realise and most importantly, quick to do. We formulated our ideas during an on the spot pitch to the project director and were quickly allocated our space - the hospital's old Laundary Room. This was to be ours to do what we wanted. We went away, watched the film and drew up designs, plans and timetables. Post-it sketches:Could we pull this off in the 5 days or so we had?

JAMES BARNETT

James makes window displays and films. He is currently in the midst of editing his latest documentary: WHERE WE ARE NOW. He is also one half of the creative cartel STUDIOGRABDOWN www.studiograbdown.com Contact James on Twitter @BRANDBARNETT Instagram @Makemeaoffer and Email jamesbarnett15@hotmail.com